


Three questions that were not asked in Busman’s Honeymoon

by antisoppist



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-03
Updated: 2011-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-14 09:18:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antisoppist/pseuds/antisoppist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unimaginative title is self-explanatory</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three questions that were not asked in Busman’s Honeymoon

1\. (At some point between 14 and 27 September 1935)

“And I’ll get Bunter to book us three tickets to Le Havre...”

“Three tickets?” asked Harriet. Had the heat of Rome impaired his ability to count?

“You, me, Bunter,” said Peter, as if stating the obvious.

“Ah,” said Harriet. So Bunter was to come with them on their honeymoon. She did hope it wasn’t going to be like that night she had found Ryland Vaughn behind the curtain that served as a wardrobe claiming unconvincingly that he had popped round to borrow a collar stud. Not wanting Peter to lose anything was all very well but one did rather wonder whether Bunter might not occasionally be temporarily mislaid.

*********

2.

“Peter,” said Harriet, folding the note up again. “Why exactly has your uncle taken it upon himself to give us marital advice? I mean he seems pleasant enough and I thought we got on fairly well but I haven’t met him all that often.” She paused. Not having any living relatives, she wasn’t sure how they usually behaved but she was pretty certain their hypothetical honeymoon correspondence would not have involved anything more presumptuous than “wishing you well in your married life together”.

“Well I suppose he still feels responsible,” said Peter, “he did supervise my early encounters with women, after all, and he’s never stopped taking an interest.”

“Supervised?” Harriet asked mildly.

Peter busied himself searching for a suitably funereal tie. It had all been perfectly reasonable and businesslike, of course, and the sensible course of action at the time, but he hadn’t ever envisaged explaining it to a wife with an inquiring mind, a barely concealed grin and a quizzically raised eyebrow.

“I was seventeen,” he said, his back turned. “My father’s indiscriminate attitude to women didn’t seem an approach to emulate, Gerald was embroiled in disastrous affairs at Oxford and was hardly a model example either so I consulted Uncle Paul and he took me in hand.”

There was a muffled snort from the other side of the room.

“Made introductions,” he amended hastily. “In Paris.”

“I see,” Harriet said, considering.

She had known of course. After all, it had been practically the first thing he had ever said to her and since she was reaping the benefits, she was hardly in a position to object had she wished to, or, given her own past, to cast stones. Since Oxford she had had ample time to reflect on the implications of his reputation as a sophisticated man of the world but it had never occurred to her to wonder precisely how sophisticated men of the world went about acquiring their much-vaunted experience. She considered asking whether the women in question had minded being experimented on, but interpreting phenomena in the light of less expert knowledge than his, she concluded that Peter at seventeen might nevertheless have been an improvement on Philip Boyes at twenty-five. And doubtless they had been well paid for any inconvenience caused. Remembering herself at seventeen, Harriet reflected, not for the first time that week, that they had moved in very different worlds indeed.

*********

3.

“Volupté non pareille, ivresse inénarrable..” He stopped abruptly as Harriet twisted out of his encircling arms.

“I met a man once,” she said gazing calmly at the ceiling, “who had been taught to sail in Norway.”

The Dower House was chilly and Peter, finding thoughts of icy fjords less than welcome, particularly at this juncture, shivered and awaited further revelations.

“He didn’t know the words for anything in English and every time he set foot in a boat, he used to point at bits of rope and start muttering in Norwegian. People who sailed with him found it all a little wearing after a while.”

“Oh, my dear,” he said. “You did make the point with exquisite tact that very first morning and I did try, but I’m afraid it’s just, well...”

“Force of habit?” she suggested. “I mean I can see it’s very flattering, all things considered. You did say no other Englishwoman, and I really don’t mind about the others but it’s a bit much to be reminded of them every single time, and to be honest, I’m not sure my French is up to it.”

Peter buried his head in the pillow, vanity crushed.

She touched his shoulder, fingernails snaking down his spine. “That bit about no English vocabulary. Might it not, perhaps, be time you learned some?”


End file.
